Fair enough, all I am saying is that tournaments are a sport...no matter how much of a master someone is, sports require athleticism.
I would absolutely agree that BJ Penn, Young Carlos and Young Helio are more than qualified to teach, which was part of my point. If someone is good after 4-5 years, why should tey have to way another 5 years to be a black belt or to teach? The older the Grandmaster got, the more he upped the bar on the standards, when in reality he and his brothers were teaching at a far earlier age. It should take 10 years to get a black belt is all I was saying.

Thanks for the replies. I am sure you know your stuff, just wanted to antagonize your first response. Thanks.

Thats the thing it does not necessarily take ten years to get a black belt if you truly apply yourself again its all about skill level for instance if your a blue belt and your coach takes you to a tournament and you compete with purple belts from other schools. If you can already submit most purple belts in your school and you win that tournament they will most likely give you your purple belt. bj penn got his black belt so fast because he was beating black belts who had been competing their whole life they basically had to give it to him.So hey if you want your black belt faster just try to get to the same skill level as most black belts then go compete and if you prove you are on black belt level then they are gonna give you your black belt.

Yeah, sure-- everyone's heard the adage that the Belt is just a tool to keep your jacket closed. However, there's a connotation of skill that goes along with it.

When I first got my Blue, I had only been training for 10 months, and I'd never had any Wrestling or Judo before. I know it's common for new Blues to feel like they don't deserve their belt, but I had been told it normally takes 2 or 3 years for a Blue, and even Kurt (Pellegrino, my coach) took 8 months to get his after having wrestled his whole life. I was proud, but I was really self-conscious, at the same time.

Then I started to meet some Blue Belts from other schools.

I won't name the schools, but I've come up against a number of Blue Belts from other schools that really ought not be Blue Belts. Guys who don't know basic things-- like not posting up against your opponent's chest when you're mounted, or not offering your back during transitions. I've seen some of my White Belts-- with only a few months of training-- smash Blue Belts with a few years of experience.

The absolute worst part of it is that I've had some of these premature Blue Belts tell me that THEY'VE seen schools with guys who don't deserve their Blues. That's just an incredible lowering of standards, in my eyes.

One of my White Belts was at NAGA World Championships, this past weekend. He wrestled in High School and College, but he's only been training Jiu-Jitsu for 6 months. After he won the Intermediate division, the NAGA officials wouldn't allow him to compete as a White Belt. Even though he WAS a White Belt.

The lowering of standards and expectations is an annoying aspect of any sport, but particularly so in a martial art where we've put so much emphasis on having real skill.

Yeah, sure-- everyone's heard the adage that the Belt is just a tool to keep your jacket closed. However, there's a connotation of skill that goes along with it.

When I first got my Blue, I had only been training for 10 months, and I'd never had any Wrestling or Judo before. I know it's common for new Blues to feel like they don't deserve their belt, but I had been told it normally takes 2 or 3 years for a Blue, and even Kurt (Pellegrino, my coach) took 8 months to get his after having wrestled his whole life. I was proud, but I was really self-conscious, at the same time.

Then I started to meet some Blue Belts from other schools.

I won't name the schools, but I've come up against a number of Blue Belts from other schools that really ought not be Blue Belts. Guys who don't know basic things-- like not posting up against your opponent's chest when you're mounted, or not offering your back during transitions. I've seen some of my White Belts-- with only a few months of training-- smash Blue Belts with a few years of experience.

The absolute worst part of it is that I've had some of these premature Blue Belts tell me that THEY'VE seen schools with guys who don't deserve their Blues. That's just an incredible lowering of standards, in my eyes.

One of my White Belts was at NAGA World Championships, this past weekend. He wrestled in High School and College, but he's only been training Jiu-Jitsu for 6 months. After he won the Intermediate division, the NAGA officials wouldn't allow him to compete as a White Belt. Even though he WAS a White Belt.

The lowering of standards and expectations is an annoying aspect of any sport, but particularly so in a martial art where we've put so much emphasis on having real skill.

--Joe

Good points you made there and congrats on getting you blue belt in 10 months thats quite an accomplishment you should be proud.
The whole lowering of standards thing is just something that comes with taking martial arts in America very few coaches here actually care about training good athletes they just care about what gets more people coming to their dojo to make them more money and sadly one of those things is allowing people to get rank faster. If someone goes to a school and the coach is actually going to wait until the student gets skilled enough to give them their new rank, unless the student is one of the few people who actually believes in working hard for what they get there is a very high chance that the student will quit because they think it's taking to long. Think about it why is tae kwon do one of the most popular martial arts practiced here in the U.S because they practically give away rank.

KFJ Anecdote Time
One of my White Belts was at NAGA World Championships, this past weekend. He wrestled in High School and College, but he's only been training Jiu-Jitsu for 6 months. After he won the Intermediate division, the NAGA officials wouldn't allow him to compete as a White Belt. Even though he WAS a White Belt.
--Joe

Congrats to him on his accomplishment. They disallowed his competing as a White as part of their efforts to eliminate sandbagging. Whether or not your student is ready to advance, he got caught up in rules to prevent people from "fighting down" and making the competition unfair.

Happened in karate as people learned a bit, opened their own dojo, taught a fragment of stuff, then their students opened up a dojo, taught a fragment of a system, 10 years later karate is a joke.

I heard that Stephen K. Hayes started out a similar program to the situation in the OP, calling up TKD places and stuff like that, offering instructor certification in "authentic ninjutsu" if they would pay money and train for a little while.

Obviously if you keep your class size to a minimum and give intense instructions to a few students who you can easily monitor their progress, you are going to produce great fighters. But then more people will want to learn the art, but if you spread it, it can get out of control, but if you don't spread it fast enough, you could lose out on a lot of potential students (and money).

Then a new art comes from "out of the blue" or "relative obscurity", a few hardcore guys doing hardcore training that everyone gets crazy about, it wins a lot, people want to learn it, it get spread, watered down, marketed, and the cycle continues.

No matter what you study, it's about studying it WELL, practicing techniques often, making sure they work, and not being satisfied with just getting a belt (or lack thereof)

Important Update!!!

One of the schools listed here is no longer an affiliate of the Laurita system...or whatever the hell it is.

Power's Karate in North Ridgeville, Ohio.

About 2 years ago a friend of mine and I checked out a seminar there. Jerry Laurita was hosting and, just for shits and giggles, I got a private with the guy. He is very large, about 6'2" and 240# (estimate). He's trained with alot of people and was quite skilled (as any black belt should be). He kicked my ass (I was only a 4 stripe blue at the time, so he should kick my ass). However, even as a blue belt I was wholly unimpressed with his seminar. Everyone at Power's was relatively new to the art. Instead of covering basics and important control and transition info, he just showed a bunch of fancy ****. Some crazy chokes and just jumping on a person's back to take it. Basically, he didn't seem to give 2 shits about the quality of his instruction.

My friend was moving to the area and this was his only place to train. So I sat down with Ed Power's, the owner, and explained to him my honest opinion. I even showed him this tread and the bad reputation his school was receiving just being affiliated with Laruita. I later introduced him to my instructor (Tony Rinaldi, www.ohiobjj.com). Shortly thereafter Ed dropped his affiliation with Laurita and began training under Tony and became affiliated with Professor Pedro Sauer. Since then, Ed and my friend have both earned their Blue Belts. Since that time I earned my purple belt and now teach at Ed's school 2 days a week (Tue-no gi and Wed-gi).

Please, if you're in the area, stop by and see us. We'd be happy to see your thoughts written on here.

On another note: I don't tend to agree with it taking 2 or 3 years to go from white to blue. For the average person, a year is good. However, to go from Blue to purple, and purple to brown...that takes a long time. Figure 1 year to blue, 3 to purple, 3 to brown, and 3 to black...that's 10 years of training to Black...pretty average.

The Bullshidofication of Brazillian Jiujitsu

James P Shannon Late Executive Director of the Minneapolis Foundation, wrote this many years ago: The tradition of respectful argument. Shannon JP, 1976. In Controversy in Surgery. Varco RL, Delaney JP, eds. WB Saunders Company One mark of an educated man is his ability to differ without becoming angry, sarcastic or discourteous. Such a man recognizes that in contingent matters there will always be a place for legitimate difference of opinion. He knows that he is not infallible, he respects the honesty and intellectual intergrity of other men and presumes all men are men of integrity until they are proven to be otherwise. He is prepared to listen to them when their superior wisdom has something of value to teach him. He is slow to anger and always confident that truth can always defend itself and state its own case without specious arguments, and emotional displays of personal pressures. This is not to say that he abandons his position easily. If his be a disciplined mind, he does not lightly forsake the intellectual ground he has won at great cost. He yields only to evidence, proof or demonstration. He is neither angered nor shocked by new evidence of public vulgarity or blindness. He is rather prepared to see in these expected human weaknesses compelling reason for more compassion, better rhetoric, stronger evidence on his part. He seeks always to persuade and seldom to denounce. The ability to defend ones position with spirit and conviction; to evaluate accurately the conflicting opinions of others and to retain ones confidence in the ultimate power of truth to carry its own weight, are necessary talents in any society, but espacially so in our democratic world. In our day and in our land, there is some evidence that these virtues are in short supply. The venerable tradition of respectful argumenatation, based on evidence, conducted with courtesy, and leading to exposition of truth, is a precious part of our heritage in this land of freedom. It is the duty of dedicated men to understand, appreciate and perpetuate this tradition.